Heatsink Roundup
Reviewed by James 02.19.2004

Benchmark Setup

This review intends to concentrate on the performance of the immobile metal that is the heatsink, not the different fans that may or may not come with the heatsinks. With this in mind, testing was conducted using the same 80x80x25mm, 4000rpm fan, satisfying all the stock needs, while exceeding many, of the heatsinks. With this setup, multiple variable experimentation is significantly cut back, allowing more accurate observation of the performance of the heatsinks.

System Setup:
A7V333
XP2000 TBred-A OC'd to 2500
512MB PC2100
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB
2x40GB Samsung HD, 1x100GB Western Digital HD

Room Temperature was maintained at 23C. Arctic Silver 3 was used as the thermal compound on all standard testing. Motherboard Monitor was used to retrieve temperatures from the die's thermal probe with final temperature confirmed via BIOS read-outs on immediate reboot after completed testing for that heatsink. Now for the results:

Legend

All temperatures are within safe levels after idling for 15 minutes from a cold boot, though OCZ's Gladiator 2 and Cooler Master's XDreamSE is a little high for comfort.

"Load" means running SETI for 20 minutes. The average is determined by taking the temperature every 30 seconds, and using those numbers to compute the average. While all heatsinks maintain the temps within safe levels, The Gladiator and XDreamSE are running hotter than is probably safe for the processor in the long run. The Microfins, surprisingly, and all the Thermalright heatsinks keep the processor within very satisfactory levels. The SK-900u in particular just doesn't budge with anything thrown at it.

The same trend holds. None of the temperatures drift above 60C, though they certainly drift close.

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